Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) said Wednesday that he felt a "new bipartisan spirit" among those in attendance at President Donald Trump's White House dinner the prior night to discuss tax reform.
"Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough asked Manchin about the dinner, which aimed to bring together a bipartisan group of lawmakers to consider how to overhaul the U.S. tax code.
"Alright senator, so let's talk about the business of the evening," Scarborough said. "Did you sense a new bipartisan spirit among the group of you guys?"
"I sure did," Manchin responded. "I mean, there were seven of us: there were four Republicans and three Democrats, there was the president and the vice president, and Gary Cohn, and Steve Mnuchin and his staff, other staffs there. It was a very in-depth conversation."
Manchin explained that Trump repeated that this tax reform plan would not be a tax cut to the top one percent.
"Then we got right into the depth of tax reform, and the president was adamant from the get go: 'This is not a tax cut for the rich and I will repeat that, this will not be a tax cut for me or any rich people,'" Manchin said, paraphrasing Trump at the dinner. "That kind of started off the conversation and it went pretty good from there."
MSNBC contributor Willie Geist asked who this tax cut would be for, if not for the one percent.
"What do you do about cutting taxes and not piling onto the debt?" Geist asked.
"You've got to compete in the marketplace and we're in a global market," Manchin said. "They want to do something that is competitive that basically gives a purge to the economy. We're going to have to wait to see the details; we haven't seen the details."